“Order from chaos.” – Sleepy Hollow Recap

Sleepy Hollow
Season 1, Episode 6: “The Sin Eater”
Posted by Sage

What up, Sleepy Heads? Welcome to the very first Head Over Feels recap of the most awesomely bananas new series of the 2013-2014 TV season! It only took a handful of episodes to get both of us hooked on the modern-day adventures of an incredibly well-preserved Ichabod Crane and his partner, badass Lt. Abbie Mills, and, judging by our Monday night Twitter feed, we know that many of you feel the same.

Every episode of Sleepy has worked so far because each one has filled up our coffers with relatively equal amounts of Sass, Shippiness, and Creepiness. So what better way to get down to the good stuff than to hit each of those categories? “The Sin Eater” didn’t skimp on any, so we’ve got a lot to cover. Tally ho, as Ichabod might say. (Right?)

#SassyHollow

As you might remember from our New York Comic Con posts, we were the first fans to inform Tom Mison and Katia Winter about the best interwebs hashtag for their show: #SassyHollow. Tom. Was. DELIGHTED. I like to think that whenever he reads a particularly cheeky line in his new script, that phrase flits across his brain. LET THAT BE OUR LEGACY TO THIS SHOW.

Anyway, the sass was out in full force in the opening scene of this episode. Abbie and Crane are at a baseball game, a place where Abbie goes to find her “order in chaos.” She likes the rules, the constancy, the level playing field. She also likes yelling at the umps, saying things like, oh, I don’t know…”YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT. BLUE, I’M A COP. I’M DEPUTIZING YOU. WAKE UP. *SNAP SNAP*” When she and Crane have kids (what?), she’s going to be the rowdiest mom in Little League. Meanwhile, Crane is thoroughly confused and a little bored. But, of course, he’s never discounted any of Abbie’s opinions or given less than his full attention to everything she’s ever said – think about it – so he stays, and even gets in on the heckling. I’m chin-handsing and smiling so hard my face hurts.

This episode’s other main sass resource is none other than Captain Irving, who has actually been remarkably tolerant of his best cop spending all her time with Mr. Colonial Williamsburg. Even he can’t believe what outlandish situations he has to put up with; his sass seems almost directed towards himself. Abbie comes to him after Katrina appears to her in a vision (while she’s driving, because witchy-poo can’t be too excited about her husband all chivalrously bowing to other women) and Ichabod disappears to try to explain his “blood tie” with the Horseman. “Would that be the HEADLESS Horseman?,” Frank asks, as if there’s any other. He then explains that there’s two things in life that one should hold onto…

But he gives her what he wants anyway – a 24 hour furlough for her committed sister Jenny. Because if this police precinct treated Abbie’s plainly-spoken but bizarre requests with even the tiniest grain of salt, we wouldn’t have this show.

Honorable Sass Mention goes to Jenny Mills for this one: “Well the next time you see that witch in a dream tell her to be more specific.”

I give the Sass in this episode 7/10 Donut Holes.

#CreepyHollow

While we’ve just been shrugging and accepting some of Sleepy Hollow‘s zaniest plot points, “The Sin Eater” actually made an effort to provide a solid link between Crane and the Horseman. Because Crane killed him, their blood and destinies are linked. (Kind of like a horcrux situation – just go with it.) And some intimidating freemasons go pretty far to convince Crane that he has a duty to off himself so that the Horseman can be brought down. They also play on some longstanding guilt, the source of which we learn about through some wispy flashbacks. As part of his soldier-y duties, Crane interrogated Arthur Bernard, a freed slave accused of distributing treasonous pamphlets. He’s all torn up about it, especially when his conscious is poked and prodded by a Quaker nurse who looks suspiciously like the entertainment at a Russian gangster’s birthday party. Kids, this is the story of how I met your mother…and she dragged me into the occult.

Katrina knows somehow that Crane can see things that others can’t – like the demon masquerading as his superior officer. This is where Crane begins to accept the strangeness of his life, which makes his confidence in the “two witnesses” prophecy more understandable. But really, I need Katrina to show those true colors soon. She isn’t the angel of mercy that she seems to be; I’m 100% sure of that. Why would she appear to Abbie when she was driving? Why meet her in the house from the first season of American Horror Story minus only the gimp?

Luckily, Jenny and Abbie find Henry Parrish (JOHN NOBLE, BACK ON MY TV!), a reluctant healer who can see and dissolve the sins of others. He spent many of his days posing as death row inmates (fun!) to absolve some dead men walking, and now is retired. (Got a little Clyde Bruckman vibe here.) Abbie Mills won’t have that, clearly, especially when her 200-year-old boyfriend needs a-saving. By the way, “Eater” isn’t a cute nickname. He ACTUALLY eats it. The sins, I mean. And some blood.

Walter Bishop drinking blood? I give the Creepiness in this episode 6/10 Sandmen.

#ShippyHollow

Welcome to Shippy Hollow, everyone. Here’s your complimentary pillow, in which to scream.

The Ichabbie feels came from left, right, and center this week. We got some serious UST at the baseball field. There’s just something about Mison’s delivery of Crane’s old-timey dialogue that makes everything he says to Abbie sound like a very fancy sext. “I look forward to you expanding my horizons further,” that bastard says, with those stupidly piercing blue eyes. And then he BOWS to her, like god damn Prince Charming. Ladies, if we all collectively up our standards, then boys will have no choice but to get on our level. And our level is now BOWS.

Jenny is forever teasing Abbie about Ichabod, but Abbie is too awesome to fall into the standard trope. You know this one: the one where the person who really cares about the other person pretends not to for no other reason than to up the tension? Not Lt. Mills, “Yeah, to me,” she says, because of course he is. And she’s got better things to do than to play this game.

Shit gets real when Abbie finds Crane in whatever spooky dungeon the freemasons dragged him to and she realizes what he’s planning on doing. She knows what honor and duty mean to him, so you can see that she’s not at all confident that she or the Sin Eater can talk him out of it. But she tries. And oh, the feels. THE FEELS. There’s hand-holding and crying and a closed-eyes hug and I don’t care if he maybe did say her first name in a prior episode, he never said it like THAT. Nothing OUTWARDLY romantic happened, but Sleepy is diving headfirst into this ship like it does everything else. It’s only the sixth episode and we get this line?

“Through these centuries, comes the impossibility that we would ever find each other. But we did. And I am so grateful for it.”

Dude. I hearby give the Shippiness in this episode 9/10 Cups of Dream Tea.

Random Observations:

• Crane was giving me a little consulting detective when he deduced who his kidnapper was. Crossover fic? Please and thank you.
• Can we make “You wanna get Biblical?” a thing? It has so many modern, practical applications.
• This show has already made me so insane that I had to rewind Crane falling into Katrina’s arms three times to figure out that he was saying “order from chaos” and NOT “Abigail.”
• Abbie, once again HBIC-ing everyone she meets: “Drop your weapons.” “That’s not how this is gonna work.”
• Sleepy is validating my lifelong fear of secret societies.
• “My ears remain eternally open to your admonition.” Sigh.

Do you agree with my rankings, readers? Arguments welcome!

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